Stranded
by BurningTyger
Summary: Legolas and Gimli have set sail, but the winds can be cruel...and so can even oldest friends.


Stranded

Legolas and Gimli have set sail, but the winds can be cruel...and so can even oldest friends.

Genre: Angst/Drama

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters or places that comprise my story. In fact, due to complications of the movie owning some of the rights, I don't know _who _owns them anymore. But rest assured that it is not I, and that I have not made any money from this.

Author's Note: I don't claim to be an expert, or even an amateur, at Tolkien's elven languages. But I do have a real elvish dictionary now (Ruth S. Noel's _The Languages of Tolkien's Middle-earth_), and I used it a few simple times in the making of this story. The phrases are translated below:

mellon nin -- my friend

nin atarion -- my brother (literally, my father's son.)

Author's Note II: As the Valar are mentioned a few times, it would help if one had read _The Silmarillion_. However, I don't really think it is integral to have read it; if I did, I would have posted this in the _Silmarillion_ category.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Stranded

They had been sailing for six days when Legolas saw the shadow. "There is a storm in the North," he told Gimli, calling back from the prow. "I can see the lightning."

"Can we skirt it?"

"Nay -- it is moving too quickly. Nor can we turn back, or reach Valinor before it is upon us. I do not know what we shall do."

"Well, we must try to weather it," Gimli said in his stalwart manner.

"We shall lose time," Legolas murmured, impatience evident on his face.

Gimli snorted. "As though time means anything at all to _you_."

"I only hope we are not blown off-course."

"Legolas, we are going_ west_!" the dwarf shouted, exasperated by his friend's unaccustomed anxiety. "Even a dwarf could follow the path of the setting sun. Fear not, my friend," he said more gently, "we will get to Valinor."

"I am sure you are right, mellon nin," he replied with a wan smile. "We have come too far to fail now. Furl the sails and hope the mast stays up," he cried lightly. "We will endure this storm together."

Though they spent much time anchoring the trunks and tying up the sail, it mattered little once the storm struck. Waves washed over the prow, but neither one cared, as the pelting rains had already soaked the two voyagers to the skin. The fierce winds whipped the sea into foam, driving the spray ever into their faces.

The boat suddenly seemed so small as it rocked down into deep troughs, then climbed out of them again. Elf and dwarf did their best to secure everything against the elements, but for each knot they tied, another rope broke. Legolas looked politely away as Gimli was seasick over the railing.

Finally, they gave up tying things down. The harsh wind felt as though it would freeze them where they stood, so they sat against the mast, huddled together under an Elven blanket that seemed at least to be waterproof. As the prow angled sharply downward, a great snapping noise was heard over the wind, and something heavy went sliding past the two. "My trunk!" Gimli cried, reaching for it. The trunk slipped past his fingers, and he lunged for it.

Legolas grabbed his shoulder and pulled him back. "It's not worth it, Gimli."

"It _is_! The Lady's gift is in that trunk!" Heedless of the wind and the rain and the flickering lightning, he threw off the blanket and dove for the chest. But even as he did, another wave came in over the rail, knocking him down. Before he could rise to his feet, a wave from the opposite side brought with it Legolas' trunk, which collided heavily with the dwarf's right temple. He fell to the deck and lay still.

"Gimli!" Legolas shouted in fear, letting go of the blanket. The wind snatched it and hurled it out to sea, but he did not care. He ran to his fallen friend, buffeted by wind and wave as he went.

Suddenly there came a tremendously bright, hot flash of light, and the thunder seemed as though it would split the earth in two. Legolas stumbled to his knees, covering his elvish ears with his hands. When he could hear again, the only sound was a great creaking that seemed to fill the entire boat. He looked up to see the mast quivering in place, singed where the lightning had struck it. Legolas rose and took two more steps towards Gimli as the ship plunged again. Then, with the groan of a dying tree, the mast collapsed. Legolas, kneeling by his friend, did not heed it until it was too late even for his elven reflexes. The broken mast struck his head, and he knew no more.

***

Legolas woke to silence, wondering vaguely if he was dead. But no, it was not really silence: the gulls were gone, but the sea still crashed about them in a gentle rhythm. The sun was blazing overhead, and he squinted in the sudden brightness.

Beside him lay the broken grey mast; just beyond him lay Gimli, still unconscious. Legolas' heart leapt in fear, but at that moment the dwarf stirred, muttered something incoherent about strawberries, and then slipped back into what might have been no more than sleep.

_Alive_, he thought with immense relief. _Just as I said -- we endured the storm together._

Legolas tugged lightly on Gimli's beard, and the dwarf awoke suddenly with a grunt. "Lay off the beard," he growled, not bothering to open his eyes.

"It took you long enough to wake up," Legolas replied haughtily, deciding not to mention that he'd awoken scant seconds before.

"Shut up."

"Gimli, we're _alive_ -- that at least is a reason to rejoice, is it not?"

"Go away."

"You always were grumpy in the morning," Legolas teased.

"Then you should have let me lie!"

"Come on, get up. You're bleeding -- right there on your temple."

Gimli sat up, feeling the spot gingerly. He winced, then gestured irritably back at the elf. "So are you -- or at least you were. Your pretty blond hair is rather a mess in the back."

Legolas made a small noise of pain and disgust as he touched his matted hair.

"Are there no limits to the elven vanity?" Gimli asked the blue sky.

"Stop it, Gimli," he said, annoyed. "My head hurts." He stood up slowly. "Why aren't we moving?"

Gimli yawned. "Because we wrecked, you fool. So much for the vaunted elven intellect."

Legolas let the insult slip by unnoticed. "Wrecked," he murmured, his heart sinking. "Back on the shores of Middle-earth, no doubt." Gripping the rail, he looked out to see a white sand beach, a small plain, and beyond it a brake and some birches. It appeared to be some kind of peninsula.

And it also appeared to be utterly deserted. Legolas' pain and despair flared into anger. He turned on his companion in wrath. "If you hadn't gone after that stupid trunk..."

"The Lady's gift was in the trunk!" Gimli protested. "To save it was worth anything."

"No, it was not," Legolas snapped. "It was not worth _this._"

"Do not make me teach you the same lesson I threatened to teach Éomer," Gimli growled.

"Listen to yourself! You would teach _me_ to be courteous to elves? Your infatuation blinds you. She is an Elf-queen, Gimli, and bound to another. You have grown overfond of her."

Gimli, chagrined and taken aback, was silent. Legolas turned away. "I waited a hundred years that you might sail with me," he said bitterly. "Now I wish I had left with Elrond." He knew the words would hurt Gimli, and a moment after he said them he wished he had not. But he did not apologize or temper his words. He just remained there, staring at the empty beach before him.

The westering sun glared brazenly down on his eyes, and he shaded them with a long thin hand. It seemed that, beyond the trees, there was a faint glimmering. The sea again. Had they landed on an island, then? And why did it seem that the sun was setting _behind_ the island? This couldn't be Middle-earth, if they were on the eastern shore...

Legolas gasped. They had indeed been blown off course. They had landed on an island in the West -- one of the Enchanted Isles that guarded the Blessed Realm! He looked harder, and through the trees he could see in the distance a shining golden shoreline that stretched across the horizon. He smiled, and it seemed that a great weight was suddenly lifted from him. "Gimli!" he cried, suddenly joyful. "Come and see -- 'tis an isle! We are nearly to the shores of Valinor!" He turned from the rail, but Gimli was not there. Legolas frowned. "Gimli? Gimli! Where are you?"

A noise from the side of the boat made him lean over the railing again. Gimli was climbing down the ladder. Legolas' breath caught in his throat. "No! Gimli, come back!" Whether the dwarf did not hear him or was merely too angry and hurt to listen, Legolas could not know. Even as the elf spoke, Gimli stepped onto the sand and trudged across the beach towards the trees. "Gimli, _no!_" he cried again, but the small form kept walking.

As soon as the dwarf's feet touched the grass of the plains, he paused. He looked up at Legolas with an agonizing mixture of confusion and sorrow, and then he lay down slowly, as if already in a dream.

"_No!_" An aching sob burst from Legolas' throat, and he collapsed to his knees. "Oh, Gimli, no. Get up, mellon nin, please." He turned his face to the west, to Valinor that lay beyond. "Oh, Valar! Do not let this happen -- I would rather be back on the shores of Middle-earth with him than here alone. Let him wake, Elbereth, if ever you loved my people, or your husband's children."

But the sun sank lower, and still Gimli slept. Legolas' grip on the rail was so tight that he thought it would surely break under his fingers. He begged Elbereth, Manwë, Ilúvatar himself, but the dwarf did not stir, nor would ever stir again until the ending of the song of Eä.

Legolas looked out at the faint shadow of the Blessed Realm through tear-dimmed eyes. He could swim that distance, he knew. He had swum long distances before, and the tide would aid him now. He would be among his people again. His father Thranduil, his mother who had left long ago, his brothers, his sisters, his friends, Lord Elrond, Lady Galadriel --

Galadriel. The very thought of her pained him. Legolas opened Gimli's waterlogged trunk and withdrew the three spun-gold hairs, encased for all time in crystal. He recalled the hateful words that he had flung at Gimli about the Lady, and what had followed. He could not set foot on the shores of the Blessed Realm, for this guilt weighed too heavily upon his heart. Though a thousand years might pass, he would never find peace there. He tightened his fist around the smooth crystal, then raised his arm and hurled the gem as far out to sea as he could. It would wash up on the shore one day, and the Lady at least would know what had become of them.

Legolas cast one long, lingering look at Valinor, then turned away. He put down his bow, his quiver, his knife -- he would need them no longer. Then he climbed lightly down the rope ladder.

As he crossed the beach, he felt nothing but the cool salty breeze, heard nothing but the rushing waves. But as he stepped upon the grass of the plains, he felt a great weight of weariness fall upon his shoulders. With an effort, he walked on to the place where Gimli lay. "I am sorry, nin atarion," he murmured. Then he cast himself down beside his fallen friend and slept.


End file.
